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Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture and the Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian religions or Dharmic religions and ...
Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Buddhism , Hinduism , Jainism , and Sikhism , [ web 1 ] [ note 1 ] are also classified as Eastern religions .
South Asia was primarily Hindu in ancient times. Buddhism appeared around 500 BCE. [10]Christianity and Islam made an appearance in Kerala during this time period; Saint Thomas is believed to have travelled to Kerala soon after the death of Jesus and converted some people, [11] while the first mosque to be built in India was built during the Islamic prophet Muhammad's lifetime in Kerala. [12]
Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, or approximately 172.2 million people, identifying as adherents of Islam in a 2011 census. [7] India also has the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. [8] [9] The majority of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up around 15% of the Muslim ...
Some scholars believe that the Dravidian religion was a belief system unique to the Neolithic people of South Asia before the origin of Indo-Aryan languages. Pope believes that in the pre-historic period the Dravidian religion was a precursor to Shaivism and Shaktism [ 13 ] while John B. Magee was of the view that native Dravidian religion ...
[11] [12] Religions such as Sikhism and Din-e-Ilahi were born out of a fusion of Hindu and Muslim religious traditions as well. [13] In the 18th century the Islamic influence in India begin to decline following the decline of the Mughal Empire, resulting in former Mughal territory conquered rival powers such as the Maratha Confederacy.
Despite the longtime assertion that the origins of Muslim-Hindu tensions were greatly attributed to 19th Century British colonial rule in India, it has been argued that Britain had little influence on constructing the religious identities of Islam and Hinduism in the region and that divisions existed beforehand as well. [23]
Hinduism and Buddhism from India dominated early regional history, reaching their peak during the reign of the Sumatra-based Srivijaya civilisation, whose influence extended through Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and much of Borneo from the 7th to the 13th centuries, which later gradually defeated and converted to Islam in 14th and 15th ...